NIO staff off sick 2.4k days

CIVIL servants at the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) in Belfast and London missed 2,427 days through sickness over the last two years, Secretary of State Owen Paterson has revealed.

NIO staff missed 1,349 days in 2010/11 and 1,078 days in 2011/12.

The Department says it has a staff complement of around 175, with offices in Belfast and London.

Based on those figures staff missed an average of eight days in 2010/11 and six days in 2011/12.

Mr Paterson said: “Comparable figures for the Department as it is now configured are not available for the years preceding the completion of devolution of policing and justice functions on 12 April 2010. During 2010-11 and 2011-12, staff in my Department took a total of 1,349 and 1,078 days sick absence respectively.”

The NIO performs better than the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) generally in terms of days missed throuhg sickness.

In 2010/2011 the headline absence figure across the NICS was 10.4 days (average days lost per staff year), down from 11.0 days in the previous year.